A poignant tale of immigration and achievement, a book* published before the riots proposed tools to understand—and help solve—France’s current identity crisis. We interviewed the authors on the unrest.

Interview by Julie Pecheur

The son of a Moroccan worker who migrated to France in the 1970s, Aziz Senni grew up with five siblings in Val-Fourré, a nasty neighborhood of Mantes-la-Jolie, in the Yvelines region (east of Paris). In 2000, with government help and considerable willpower, Mr. Senni managed, at 23, to start his own business: a network of minivans (“cheaper than a taxi, faster than a bus”) for private and corporate clients. Today A.T.A. (Alliance Transport Accompagnement), whose headquarters are still located in Mantes, has spread to five cities throughout France and employs over forty people, with annual sales of 1.5 million euros.

In 2001, working in the banlieue for the TV channel France 3, Jean-Marc Pitte met the young French Muslim whose story challenges the clichés, at a time of social unease with immigration. Their encounter resulted in a book published last October, L’ascenseur social est en panne. J’ai pris l’escalier (The Social Elevator is Broken. I Took the Stairs). (In easy French!)
From perplexing family trips to his father’s village in Morocco to racist remarks from teachers, from the discovery of Paris to coaching by Jewish business mentors, his first-person account is a poignant testimony of immigration—a rare genre on French shelves, where immigration is rarely about human experience but rather about figures and theories.

Furthermore, Mr. Senni provides us with a straightforward analysis of France’s identity crisis. Now courted by politicians and the media, Mr. Senni, refreshingly devoid of political correctness, delves into the topics that have defined the political agenda and media coverage in recent years: crime and insecurity, police brutality, the rise of the extreme right, the wearing of the veil in public institutions, public financing for building and maintaining mosques (as is currently the case for churches built before 1905), family ties, the public school system as a means of integration, affirmative action… In fact, although he is still independent politically, Mr. Senni participated in 2004 in working groups that have help define the government’s policies towards the integration of immigrants within the French society.

Between interviews with the media and meetings with political leaders, from the right and left, Aziz Senni welcomed us with Jean-Marc Pitte in his office, prefab cubicles, in Mantes to talk about the riots.

Aziz Senni et Jean-Marc Pitte © Michael Abraham

What were your thoughts when the riots started and as they continued?
Aziz Senni: First of all, I was not surprised. Nothing has been done in these suburbs for the past thirty years, except for tiny measures that had nearly no effect on the ground. Unemployment is decreasing nationally, but it continues to rise in the suburbs, with rates as high as 60 percent in some neighborhoods. We still witness discrimination in the work place: people of immigrant descent have a threefold greater chance of being unemployed than those with older French roots. The economic situation is very, very, hard. There were riots in the 1980s, it exploded again in the 1990s, and now again. It will in the future if nothing is done.

Were you surprised?
Jean-Marc Pitte: I didn’t see the unrest come, and certainly not the spread of it, but I reacted when I heard Sarkozy’s provocation [Interior Minister Nicholas Sarkozy referred to the rioters as “scum”]. I thought he was trying to center the debate on insecurity and immigration for the presidential elections [in 2007], as was the case in the 2002 election [the tactic, used by both the right and the left, in part led to the presence of the extreme right in the run off].

Do you feel close to these young people?
A. Senni: I feel close to those who were hurt and who tried to deliver a message. I condemn the methods, but I understand them.

Ten years ago, did you participate in the social unrest?
A. Senni: In 1991 [the Val-Fourré became the theater of violence between the police and the youths, which resulted in the death of three people], I wanted to participate, but my dad is like a one-man police battalion. I couldn’t!

The majority of those arrested are very young. Is there a difference between their generation and yours?
A. Senni: Yes. There is less hope, and they are way more angry at society. It is hard for them to express it, but they feel rejected. As a matter of fact, society is having a hard time convincing them that they are French and belong here and providing them with dreams of better future.

J-M. Pitte: They’re convinced that the school system isn’t working for them, that they don’t belong in France. They have difficulty finding the means to express the problem. Politicians ignore them. They try to have as little communication with their parents as possible, and now even the big brothers, once a link, say they can’t talk to them. There are few means of communication left.

Why didn’t the rioters bring the unrest to the middle of Paris?
J-M. Pitte: There is of course a matter of logistics! But more striking is the strong symbolic frontier. When I started working in the suburbs, I realized that many think of their neighborhood as a place where they are relegated, but also protected. When they travel to Paris, they hang around the streets near the RER station. They feel entire arrondissements are off-limits. Many families have never been to the Eiffel Tower.

What role did religion play in the riots?
A. Senni: It is not a religious insurrection. I am not saying there wasn’t a small religious aspect to it: of course the bearded ones [Islamists] are shopping at the misery counter. But it’s not organized; I smile to myself when I hear there is some kind of manipulation happening.

Are these riots similar to the racial riots in, say Los Angeles?
A. Senni: This is first and foremost an economic problem and a geographic one before it’s religious or ethnic. These neighborhoods are misery enclaves. In some suburbs it’s already a war zone! Because of economic factors, their inhabitants happened to be mostly immigrants or their descendents, but there are a lot of people of French origin too. Many of immigrants did not participate--none of the older ones did.
What is certain, though, is that these youths suffer from discrimination and racism. Marianne [symbol of the Republic of France] needs a good psychoanalysis. She doesn’t know who she is anymore. There is a bizarre love-hate relationship with the former colonies. The real question is, what does it mean to be French today? Can I be an Arab, a Muslim and still love the flag and my country? I think it is possible.

J-M. Pitte: With these riots, for the first time, people, politicians talk about discrimination as a fact that exists. For the first time it is not a moral issue—it’s bad not to like Blacks—but a legal and technical problem that needs to be eradicated. Before I started working with Aziz, I was against affirmative action. Now I realize how much people from these neighborhoods are acutely aware of rejection. Enough of vast principles: we need reform.

What is the French “modèle républicain”, or Republic paradigm, and do you think it should be kept?
J-M. Pitte: I am deeply attached to it. It’s a notion inherited from the Revolution that states that a nation is the result of the contract that links the citizens to the country. It is an idea, not some kind of genetic bond within the population. That means that the nation can integrate people and unify them as French citizens. Today, we are failing that goal and need to reform a system that has become hypocritical. Now I think we should authorize the use of ethnic statistics to scientifically define problems, but before I didn’t like the idea. I refuse communautarism (i.e. the creation of separate ethnic communities), in which people live according to traditions from their original countries within a country. I want Aziz’s grandchildren to be able to become Savoyards [from the Savoie region in the Alps] if they like to ski, and mine to have interest in other cultures.
All French political parties are hostile to communautarism, but they have helped create it by denying people of different origins political power within the existing structure. If they don’t open up, then we’ll have ethnic parties, and that will be the end of the “modèle républicain.”

A. Senni: We, people of foreign backgrounds, are caught between the French Republic’s ideal and communautarism—“ethnicity” is against the Republic, but Equality, as in “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité” doesn’t exist. I am against creating files that mention national or cultural origins. If you think people are French, then there is no need to know if they are of Asian or Arab ancestry or if they are Muslims or Jews. Yet when I look at Canada or the United States, I see affirmative action. Here in France, when we say “affirmative action,” race comes to mind, but it could be implemented according to one’s socio-economic background instead. That, to help the poorest, would be totally in accordance with the Republic.

Mr. Senni, How come you made it?
A. Senni: First, it’s because of my parents. They were very strict; for my dad, school was the only thing that mattered. Still, there was a lot of love and affection. Then, there was my own temperament. In school my friends told me about their holidays in the Alps when I had no money and couldn’t ask since we were eight at home, plus the family in Morocco. I realized early that that kind of life wasn’t for me! I decided to create my own company. I’d had two jobs and was getting no place and saw there was no place there for me in the future. So I thought, I am 23 and have nothing to lose. I wasn’t a militant. At the time I didn’t think of helping other people: I was the one who needed help.

How has your life changed?
A. Senni: I have moved into the upscale neighborhood! [Laughs] I bought a big house with a view in the center of Mantes. But I haven’t left this suburb, it’s still home: I have my friends, my family. I don’t feel chained here though, maybe I’ll leave one day. But my company will stay here.

What do you think of the media coverage of the riots?
A. Senni: Mostly, they have understood, which is a recent occurrence. They understand that they play a role, that they can fan the fire or douse it. It’s just a shame that the cameras show the suburbs only when things like that happen. The suburbs are now synonymous with cops and burning cars. You never see people who work, the various associations, the family parties….

Do you think the politicians got the message?
A. Senni: Not at all. There are totally out of it. They have no idea how life really is in the banlieues. They complicate things for their political agenda and as a result people suffer.

J-M. Pitte: Right now, I do think the politicians near the fire—politicians who really work for the people on the ground—have felt the heat. They talk about it more, they are less hypocritical, they convey the message to the higher-ups: ‘this was close; do something quick! That’s your priority.’ I don’t think they have gotten it yet. Some one like Sarkozy is playing with fire, focusing on the coming election. He is totally irresponsible but he is smart. He wants to play the fear factor, even if it’s dangerous. And it works.

Do you think it is too late for the young rioters? Is this a sacrificed generation?
J-M. Pitte: I don’t want to sound pessimistic, but I think it is going to be too late for that generation, but things need to be done so that a kid who’s three today can make it.

A. Senni: I think there is still hope. They need hope, work, education, and political representation.

What do you want to tell these youths?
A. Senni: That there is hope, that violence won’t solve the problem, that a voting ballot is more efficient than a Molotov cocktail, and that they need to organize politically. School and diplomas, despite discrimination, are still the best option. We don’t have the right to give up, for ourselves and for our parents who sacrificed a lot for us. But above all, I want to address the French society: people have to stop saying that these youngsters don’t want to integrate and work when in fact nothing is done for them. You can’t simultaneously point at them and ignore them

*Aziz Senni and Jean-Marc Pitte. 2005. L’ascenseur social est en panne. J’ai pris l’escalier. Paris: L’Archipel. 180 pages, 15.95€.